A Trash Martial Soul and Awakened Memories

Maple Leaf Town's Soul Master Hall was the old stone house at the western end of town. Its plaster was mottled, and the emblem carved into the lintel had worn smooth. It was usually deserted, but for a few days at the start of spring each year, the crowds packed it so tightly that not even water could have trickled through.

The air smelled of sweat and cheap tobacco, and a restless tension hung over it.

Lu Yuan stood near the back of the line. He was small and thin, his complexion sallow. His father, Lu Qinghe, stood half a step behind him, a large, rough hand pressing rather heavily on his shoulder. Lu Yuan didn't turn around. He narrowed his eyes and studied the scene ahead.

The Soul Master in charge of awakenings was a man in his forties, dressed in a gray robe with a dull one-ring badge pinned to his chest. His face was expressionless, and his movements were practiced to the point of numbness. Six black stones were arranged in a hexagon, and a pale golden dome of light rose from them.

The illusory image of a small sickle appeared above a child's palm.

"Tool Martial Soul, sickle," the gray-robed Soul Master said flatly, taking out a transparent crystal ball. "Let's test your Innate Soul Power."

The child grasped it. The sphere glimmered faintly for a moment.

"Innate Soul Power, level zero." The Soul Master made a note. "Next."

Several sighs rose from the crowd. The child's father dragged him aside and muttered a curse.

The line shuffled forward.

A hoe, a grass rope, a sparrow... Four or five children in a row awakened ordinary Martial Souls, and only the girl with the sparrow Martial Soul had any Innate Soul Power, at level one, the highest among them. The gray-robed Soul Master's impatience grew increasingly apparent. The mood was gloomy.

Then it was Lu Yuan's turn.

Lu Qinghe removed his hand from Lu Yuan's shoulder and gave him a gentle push. Lu Yuan took a breath and stepped into the circle of stones. The stones were icy cold.

"Your hand."

Lu Yuan held out his right hand. It was thin, with prominent knuckles.

Golden light enveloped him, warm and pleasant. A faint current rose from his palm. He concentrated, trying to catch it.

A speck of dull green appeared in his palm, spreading and taking the shape of a blade of grass. Its leaves were long and slender, their edges curled, their color a lifeless dark green, their veins indistinct. The whole plant drooped, utterly devoid of vitality.

The gray-robed Soul Master looked up and frowned. "Mutated Blue Silver Grass."

A suppressed stir ran through the crowd. Blue Silver Grass was already a Trash Martial Soul, and this one had even "mutated"?

Lu Yuan's heart sank. He stared at the lusterless grass in his palm, feeling weak, feeble fluctuations of Soul Power at his fingertips. An icy hollowness rose from his stomach.

Why?

The thought had barely surfaced when the crystal ball was held out to him. "Hold it."

Lu Yuan grasped it with his left hand. It was icy cold. He guided his pitifully weak Soul Power into it.

A tiny light struggled to life inside the crystal ball. It was so faint it could have been an illusion, barely clinging to life.

The gray-robed Soul Master glanced at it, the corners of his mouth turning down slightly. He took back the crystal ball and spoke clearly:

"Innate Soul Power, half a level." He paused. "Trash Martial Soul."

Boom-

Snickers, murmurs, and regretful sighs erupted all at once.

"Half a level?"

"Blue Silver Grass was bad enough, and it even mutated... What a shame for Old Lu's boy."

"He'd better settle down and farm from now on."

The words pricked like a multitude of tiny needles. Lu Yuan stood where he was, the dull Blue Silver Grass still lingering in his palm. His father made no sound behind him. Crushing disappointment and despair threatened to swallow him like icy sludge.

At that very instant-

Hum!

From the depths of his mind, without the slightest warning, something burst forth!

Countless shattered images, sounds, symbols, formulas... all mingled with powerful emotions-lifelong, single-minded dedication, the ecstasy of discovering truth, anger at the barriers he faced, the loneliness of being ostracized, and finally the profound regret of dying in gloom with his ambitions unfulfilled. Everything gathered into a vast torrent, brutally breaking through the defenses of his six-year-old consciousness.

Lu Yuan grunted, his vision darkening as his body swayed. A violent headache struck him. The voices around him grew distant and indistinct.

He "saw" it.

A figure hunched over a desk, writing furiously beneath a solitary lamp late at night. Complex models of Soul Power circulation taking shape in the air, undergoing calculations, and collapsing. Pages covered in deductions swept roughly to the floor. Face after face, some indifferent, others sneering. Rebukes of "heresy" and "shaking the foundations." A spent, dying gaze from a sickbed, looking out the window at an empty darkness.

I can't accept this...

That soul's final sigh echoed through his sea of consciousness like a thunderclap.

The torrent receded. A vast, systematic body of knowledge settled in its wake: a model of Soul Power's essence, conjectures about Martial Soul structure, a Soul Ring matching function, paths for optimizing meditation, a chart of opposing attributes, experimental designs for inducing Martial Soul Mutation...

This was the lifelong work of a researcher.

The headache faded, replaced by an icy, detached clarity. The sounds around him became clear again. His father's hand supported his arm, warm and trembling slightly.

Lu Yuan slowly straightened up.

He lowered his head and looked again at his right palm.

The dull, withered mutated Blue Silver Grass was still there, sustained by half a level of Soul Power.

But now, the despair and bewilderment in Lu Yuan's eyes were abruptly wiped away.

Completely.

In their place was absolute calm and scrutiny bordering on coldness.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, an old scar at the outer edge of his left eyebrow faintly visible. His gaze was like the most precise probe, scanning inch by inch from leaf tip to vein, then to the point where it connected to his Soul Power.

He was no longer looking at a "Trash Martial Soul" that would decide his fate.

He was looking at a phenomenon.

An "anomalous data sample" that did not fit conventional models.

A "research subject" with an unusual structure and a weak energy response, but one that might conceal unknown variables...

The sounds around him, his father's worry, the Soul Master's indifference, the children's snickers... all suddenly faded and receded, becoming background noise. All his attention focused on the little blade of grass in his palm, the one that had been sentenced to "death."

Unconsciously, his index finger tapped lightly once against the palm of his other hand.

The rhythm was steady, carrying the cadence of thought.

"What are you spacing out for? Get down." The gray-robed Soul Master's impatient voice rang out.

Lu Yuan raised his eyes and glanced at the Soul Master. His gaze was too calm, too deep, unlike that of a six-year-old child who had just suffered a blow. The Soul Master froze for a moment, an inexplicable chill running through him.

He said nothing and closed his hand, dispelling the illusory image of the Blue Silver Grass. The fluctuations of Soul Power withdrew into his body.

He turned and stepped down from the stone platform.

His steps were steady.

Lu Qinghe came forward, his lips moving, but in the end he only patted Lu Yuan's back hard and said hoarsely, "...Let's go home first."

Lu Yuan nodded and let his father take his hand. That hand was large, rough, and warm, and it held his tightly.

He looked back one last time, at the dilapidated stone house, at the indifferent profile of the gray-robed Soul Master, and at the gazes of the crowd that had yet to disperse, a mixture of pity and mockery.

There was not a ripple in his eyes.

Only calm as deep as a pool, and, at its bottom, a nearly imperceptible spark quietly kindling.

In this life, the road seemed to have been blocked off.

But these things that had appeared in his mind... might they pry open a crack?

He pondered silently as his father led him into the dispersing crowd. His small, thin figure gradually receded into the distance in the slightly chilly spring wind.